Despite growing ties with the U.S., a recent self-immolation in Hanoi was emblematic of the country's deteriorating human rights situation and attacks on free speech.
On July 30 Dang Thi Kim Lieng set herself on fire outside the Bac Lieu People’s Committee building in southern Vietnam. She died of her injuries en route to hospital. Lieng, who was 64, was protesting the detention of her daughter Ta Phong Tan, who was arrested September 30 last year and was due to go to trial August 7. At the time of publication, the hearing has been postponed indefinitely.
Tan, along with Phan Thanh Hai and Nguyen Van Hai, better known as “Dieu Cay,” was a member of the Free Journalists Club, an unsanctioned group pushing freedom of speech in Vietnam. Without the relevant government permission needed to form their group it was deemed illegal.
The three bloggers are scheduled be tried under section 88 of the criminal code, which relates to propaganda against the state. A maximum sentence could carry with it 20 years in prison, though most bloggers tried receive lower sentences.
It’s the latest in a string of arrests of bloggers and other dissidents. According to Human Rights Watch ten activists have been sentenced this year.
Both the United States and the United Nations have expressed concern and the United States has called on Vietnam to free the three bloggers. Reporters Without Borders called Lieng’s act an “act of despair."
This year, as in previous ones, much has been said about human rights in Vietnam. Generally the cases that draw the most attention are those of dissidents expressing opinions about the government. Sometimes cases of repression based on creed or ethnicity also make headlines.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Hanoi in July she mentioned human rights, saying, "There are some who argue that developing economies need to put economic growth first and worry about political reform and democracy later. But that is a short-sighted bargain. Political reform and economic growth are linked.”
The U.S. has a strong and organized Vietnamese community – many of whose older members fled the communists. They hold enough political clout that representatives, such as Rep. Loretta Sanchez in California, regularly pushes for Vietnam to make human rights a priority.
On July 25, Stanford law school’s Alan Weiner tabled a petition to the United Nations about the arbitrary detention of 17 activists from the Catholic Redemptionist Church in Vietnam.
However no matter the amount of pressure applied and the number of statements issued, the situation in Vietnam has not improved. Weiner calls it “a growing pattern of human rights abuses” in a press release sent to media.
In fact, the decline dates back to 2008 when press freedom was curtailed after two reporters were arrested for their reporting on the well-known PMU18 case, when, in 2006, some Party officials were found to be gambling vast sums of Japanese and World Bank aid money on football matches.
That was the same year a new blog law came into force officially banning bloggers from touching anything political.
Photo Credit: Jawcey (Flickr)
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Kim’s Uncle
Viet Cong regime is getting more and more nervous as the years go by because we live in the Information Age where the free and unencumbered flow of information is a reality and fact of life. Viet Cong can't control people like they did during the old days. Those crude ways do not work anymore. People can get alternative sources of information rather depend on reading cartoonish propaganda from the state media. Silly Viet Cong are as silly as their Chinese mentors in the north. Two dying regimes that will have to face up to music one day.
Leonard R.
.I wish the United States would focus on what is important — protecting US national security and the American people – rather than meddling in the blogospheres of other nations. It's none of Washington's business.
It's annoying. It's counter-productive. The US has human rights problems of its own. And its meddling did not work out so well in Egypt, where the new government it helped bring to power is firing missiles into Israel, arresting Westerners & persecuting Christians. Egyptian mobs are even crucifying people now.
The US needs to focus on what is important – protecting America from its enemies. And it is not doing that when it is wagging its finger at other governments about their blogospheres.
Hugo Chavez
Few weeks ago Russian navy sunk a Chinese ship for invading Russian territory, an yesterday Japan arrested Chinese activist for putting up Chinese flag on a Japanese island; while the Vietnamese communist government arrested Vietnamese people for protesting against Chinese invasion of Vietnamese islands; Why? Is that because the Vietnamese communist government has already offered Vietnam to be a part of China?
filipino defender
that should be a solution to Chinese incursions
Tom Tran
Human right is nothing, for the CPV. As a Vietnamese still bringing Vietnam passport (and the only passport I have at the moment) – I am telling you from my own feeling, and of my friends, families and all those I know. The threat to the CPV doesn't come from China or US, but from its own people getting so fed up with blatant lies, corruption, oppression of voice from this oppressive regime. That's why you may ask why, even during the most critical time, the regime still keeps a distance with US and a close, if not to say, obedient attitude toward China. I have no doubt if this regime is willing to silence all internal opposite voice while appeasing to its big brother in the North. China may well know this fact and better not to over play its hands. At some point the CPV has to decide if betraying the population could guarantee its survival. If China doesn't push too much then the CPV would be willing to compromise to please both its big boss and at the same time tries to look tough. But if China pushes too hard then there is only one way out for the CPV: reform to befriend with the US. It would be interesting then.
Cam
The only way for the VCP to guarantee a regime survival is to play game on both sides as you exactly pointed out. They all know how their fate would be when they don’t have any power anymore that is each one of them will be hunted down by the Vietnamese people given what they have done the people and country since they came to power. You could see that as people who protested China recently harassed and arrested. I personally wait for a shot in the East Sea regardless of who would fire first, then it would trigger a chain reaction that might spell out an end of the repressive regime.
A Vietnamese
"Some are now raising the question of whether the United States has done as much as it can when it comes to addressing human rights in Vietnam. "
You can't blame US for the human rights issue in VN. The country and its people need to help itself.
In developed countries, we don't hit our kids. We focus on educating and explaining when they do something wrong. But in VN, you will get verbal abuse or physical abuse from our own parents for doing something wrong like dropping a bow for example. In bigger scale, the government abuses its people because it thinks that's the only way to manage the country.
So if we want something to change, we need to educate every Vietnamese to value lives, to drive safely, to be good to people other than in their immediate family, to think about not just the next generation but generations to come. Politicians need to understand that they can't be in power forever. They will die. So what they want to do when they have power – collecting a limited amount of money or laying a better future for generations to come.
John Chan
@A Vietnamese,
I guess you have not read “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens, vocal abuse and physical abuse among the White during that time was horrendous, the social brutality exited because of poverty.
If we take you as an example, it seems Vietnamese can be civilized with proper manner if a comfortable environment is provided. So you see poverty is the perpetuator of the sin you are denouncing, not the people themselves.
Vietnam is a rich land, but after decades of French colonial exploitation, Japanese and American bombing and killing, even a rich land becomes poor and poverty stricken.
American is trying to drag Vietnam into war as its cannon fodder to contain China. Vietnamese government has to walk a tight rope to give itself time and space to develop so that Vietnamese would have the environment you are enjoying, so that they could also behave as civilize as you; blaming Vietnamese government blindly on the human rights issue based on the distorted western information is rather unfair to the Vietnamese government.
Sideley
@ John Chang,
You forgot to mention that it is China that left most serious (painful) scarces on Vietnamese lands and minds: In spite of decades of civil war, China, the ancestral enemy didn't want to spare Vietnam. It took advantage of the dismal state of S.Vietnamese navy to hold up the Paracel islands (with the ideological support of the North vietnameses) China armed the Khmer Rouge to carry out ethnic cleansing in Cambodia then directly attacked Vietnamese borders. China troops killed at least 100.000 Vietnamese people during their flash invasion campaing in 1979. Number of skirmishes in the 1980 involved China armed forces.
The French left VN land with then modern infrastructures. The American helped VN to modernise economy, education and health care and infrastructure improvement, what have done China ?? Nothing except some crappy polluting factories China forced the communist Vietnamese to buy.
Remember the "scorched-earth policy"when Chinese troops withdrew from Vietnam.
Goodwill
You are so right Sideley. China must be ashamed of illegally holding up Viet Nam’s islands. Be a good neighbor, China! Doesn’t act like a hypocrite, who is greedy and intolerant. Return our islands immediately! No dumb people to grant you our land, China. The loss of our Republic of Viet Nam has taught us an expensive lesson. We need to stand on our own, independent on everything with the strength of the whole nation and people, no one else.
Viet Khang
The bottom line is that, the Vietnamese communist government does not play the rules according to the International Law of Human rights. In addition to this, the Vietnamese communist government did signed the international treaties outlining that they (VC) respect human rights and Blah Blah and Blah Blah to their citizens. Ironically, the Vietnamese communist government did signed but never respect or implementation of any of the international laws. The Vietnamese communist government arrests any citizens that express any form of freedom of expression, any form of peaceful demonstrations or criticisms against the incompetence of the Vietnamese communist government.
This shows the Vietnamese communist government disregard and disrespect any forms of the international laws.
While the Vietnamese communist government disrespect and ignore the international laws to suppress and arrest their citizens, the Vietnamese communist government calling on China to respect the international laws because China has violated Vietnam sovereignty by intrusion and taken Vietnam's land.
On one hand, the Vietnamese communist government disrespect the international law by suppress and oppress their citizens. On the other hand, they call on China to respect the international law. Before the fall of South Vietnam government (1975), the Vietnamese communist government from North Vietnam and the Vietnamese communist party endorsed China's claim of the East sea islands by stating that the Spratly and Paracel islands belonging to China. After 1975, when the Vietnamese communist government defeated South Vietnam's regime with the helped from China, the Vietnamese communist government realised that the price of getting China to support the Vietnamese Communist government in return for those islands were tooo great. In other words, the incompetent Vietnamese communist government has sold the Paracel and Spratly to China in order to get China to help and to defeat South vietnam's regime.
mary pham
Bridget O'Flaherty – I know Vietnam has had pretty shaky records on human rights, thus I am surprised that you have to even falsify / distort facts to support your viewpoints:
1. As tragic as it was, Ms. Dang Thi Kim Lieng's self-immolation death can not be solely characterized as her protest against the detention of her daughter Ta Phong Tan. Go to BBC Vietnamese and listen to a live recording of Ms. Lieng's own daughter, speculating on contributing causes to her mother's action. Even when pressed hard, protest was never mentioned. Do you have other proofs?
2. I followed your link to a certain UN statement in response to Ms. Lieng's self-immolation death without success. Can you improve your access link?
3. As a Vietnamese American, I am watching and often participating in activities that may help improve human rights in my former country, but I am very also aware that over 2 millions oversea Vietnamese are using human rights, religious rights as tactical tools for potential overthrow of Vietnamese government and the internet facilitated their supports, integration and/or instigation with domestic activists. Aggregating rights violation and making statistical summaries without in-depth reviews of political motives, sources origination, internal vs. external connections… will eventually do more harms than helps the real human rights future in Vietnam.
pervescent
I don't believe you actually get involved into any fight for human rights in VN. Any sensible person who really care about human rights in Vietnam would state that the first major step to improve human right records in Vietnam is to wipe out this regime.
Anh Chàng Cộng Sản
This is the unforeseen legacy of Vietnam war. US presidents and army lost the war and left their ally (the South Vietnam) without sufficient liability . Some South Vietnamese tried to escape and somehow reached US border, causing a long-term damage to US economy by consuming large amount of welfare, while in the surge of retaking their homeland and their lost interests, they are using their rights of freedom to protest the harsh Communist regime in Vietnam, and also causing social unrest to the US and their own community. Most of the remain South Vietnamese are now fully integrated with the North as a whole, but some others, by answering the call of freedom, has been moving to live behind the bars to protest the dictatorship.
It is now job for both Vietnamese and US to resolve their crimes and irresponsibilites in the past.
John Chan
Any reporting on human rights issues from the West should be taken with grain of salt, usually it is prelude of political blackmail, because the West is simply pot calling kettle black.
Vietnam just copies what the USA’s did regarding putting economy before human rights. USA passed Patriotic Act to strip unions, activist groups, etc. capability to inhabit corporations from bloating their bottom line and CEO’s ridiculous pay package at the workers’ expenses.
Recently American diplomats got caught boasting openly in the pubs in Hanoi that USA is in
Vietnam to overthrow the communist regime. It is simply shameless and laughable for the article to claim that USA is in Vietnam to care human rights and to defend threat from China.
If USA has any decency, it should show remorse about the atrocity it committed in the 10 years of Vietnam War to the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese demand for “Vietnam wants its president to be received at the White House, they want a strategic partnership with the U.S., and they want the U.S. to lift restrictions on arms sales.” are pitiful wishes as a compensation for the 10 years suffering the Vietnamese endured in the Vietnam War, yet USA won’t grant Vietnamese such meagre wishes because they won’t forget and forgive that Vietnam dared to challenge USA’s creditability of willingness to use brutality.
Poor Vietnamese, instead of demanding fairness from the American, now they have to be lectured by the American self-righteously on the moral high ground.
Don
Communist regimes are basically the same everywhere. Even they're in China, N.Korea, Vietnam, or Cuba etc., they 're just one-party authoritarian regimes. The basic human rights such as freedom of speech, thought, religion, press, assembly, life, liberty,security etc. are something too luxurious & almost non-existent in these societies. We are here in the US, an open liberal society, can criticize the government & even the president of the USA without any legal or political consequences. But in those countries , anyone, who dares to criticize the regimes, their leaders or calling for more freedom & democracy or political reforms, will be treated as traitors plotting to overthrow the 'legitimate' communist governments & be politically persecuted &imprisoned. In the case of Vietnam, without serious economic & political reforms, it will be hard for Vietnam to defend & maintain its independence, national sovereignty & territorial integrity in the face of an aggressive expansionist China.
John Chan
@Don,
The form of Vietnamese government is not an excuse for the American to escape its moral responsibility of showing remorse about the war crimes and atrocities it committed to the innocent Vietnamese and other IndoChina people.
Whatever the merits the USA society have, it does not qualify the USA to commit the following crimes against a bunch of people thousands miles away form the USA on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, who have no idea what American looks like.
4 millions Viet civilians and 2 million Cambodians killed; 8 million tons of bombs (=640 Hiroshima size nuclear bombs) 90 million gallons of Agent Orange(dioxin) Agent White, Agent Blue, Agent Purple, Agent Green, Agent Pink on 4 million IndoChina people. It is equivalent to wipe out 30% of American 10 biggest cites.
When is the American going to apologize to the Vietnamese for the wrong it has done to them and compensate them?
Don
John Chan,
Here we're talking about the basic human rights/Freedom of speech still heavily restricted & forbidden in any communist authoritarian regimes either in Vietnam, China, NKorea, or Cuba etc, not about the Vietnam war. Any way , just want to jog your memory a little bit , the Vietnam War was just a proxy war between the 2 international political ideological blocks struggling for expanding their own sphere of influence in the world : Liberal Free World ( US& its allies) vs. Communist Authoritarianism ( China, Soviet Union & their satellites). Several millions of Vietnamese casualties were the bitter consequences of this lengthy brutal bloody war. China was the very greatest beneficiary & and also one of the main culprits in this inhumane costly conflict, & so far still owed the Vietnamese people an apology for helping wage & prolong this cruel civil war b/w the North & South Vietnam . You still remember the notorious statement of Mao Zedong,"We ( China) will fight the American Imperialism to the 'last man' ( Vietnamese not Chinese!) ?
John Chan
@Dan,
It is the entitlement of American Exceptionalism the Yankee says, bombing and killing is the USA’s gift to the Vietnam; Vietnamese should bend over to let the Americans have a kick again to show their appreciation.
“Several millions of Vietnamese casualties were the bitter consequences of this lengthy brutal bloody war.” yes, those are merely collateral damages, Asians are not human being I can hear the almighty Whiteman says, they are commie rats. That’s the same wicked mentality and tone we heard before WWII.
Don
Chan,
Simply put, the Vietnamese people are just the innocent victims of that dirty brutal struggle for expansion of influence in the SEA between those two political ideologies. I repeat here ' China is one of the main culprits' in this lengthy bloody war. And all wars by nature are cruel, bloody , devastating& destructive physically, mentally & psychologically to all peoples & nations involved. Vietnam & particularly the Vietnamese people are no exception to this ruthless rule; and those painful unforgettable scars are still deep down in their hearts & souls & their war-torn motherland. But the sudden collapse & demise of Communism in this world has somehow justified for the just cause that the Vietnamese people have fought & sacrificed for in that lengthy war. Surely, some day another Spring will be coming for all the peoples still being oppressed in this planet. Just wait & see & never lose your faith, my dear comrade!
Ooh-la-la
Ahhh… Wouldn't it be nice if Vietnam just obediently follow China and ignore all these American overtures?? Wouldn't it be wonderful if China could just have its own way in Southeast Asia? But sorry. Most Vietnamese do not buy that fake relationship with China anymore. What is left is just Vietnamese communists trying to hang on a crumpled legacy and had to depend on the Chinese communists to maintain power.
Your effort to remind the Vietnamese of their past ordeal is rather shameless and laughable since, despite the pains and violence of war, most of the Vietnamese do not harbor grudges against the U.S. They do, however, harbor deep mistrust of China. One can only wonder why.
John Chan
@Ooh-la-la,
Nobody is asking Vietnam to change its political position, the issue here is a moral one, where is the fairness for the innocent Vietnamese war victims. I am asking USA to uphold the core value of the Western culture it proclaimed, fairness.
You surely have created a first in the field of shameless immorality in the world. By saying “most of the Vietnamese do not harbor grudges against the U.S.” after the Vietnam War is like the Japanese saying “Americans do not harbor grudges against the Japanese” after the Japanese bombing the Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March.
A war criminal proclaiming the victim’s forgiveness on behalf of the victim is the height of hubris and miscarriage of justice. I am not sure how to describe such hypocrisy, unscrupulous, perjury, or is it a Kangaroo Court…?